Convicted killer Levi Bellfield has admitted to driving the red car linked to the abduction and murder of schoolgirl Amanda Dowler in 2002, it is reported.

Bellfield – jailed for life in 2008 for murdering two young women – is the prime suspect in the unsolved crime.

Murder victim Amanda Dowler, who vanished as she walked home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in 2002

The 13-year-old, known as Milly, vanished while walking home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

Six months later her skeletal remains were found 30 miles away by mushroom pickers on Yateley Heath, Hampshire.

Bellfield was previously arrested and questioned over the murder but refused to account for his movements on the day Milly disappeared.

But in an interview with the Daily Mirror from Wakefield Prison, the 40-year-old said he was behind the wheel of the Daewoo Nexia car captured on CCTV in Walton-on-Thames minutes after Milly disappeared seven years ago.

Bellfield’s then girlfriend Emma Mills owned a car of the same colour and model, which was reported stolen a few days after Milly vanished and was never traced.

A red car also features in another major line of inquiry sparked by what may have been an attempted abduction the previous day less than three miles from Walton-on-Thames.

Asked whether it was him in the car that day, the former wheelclamper and bouncer said: “It doesn’t take a lot to work out does it? There’s not many red Daewoos floating about in Walton-on-Thames, so we’ve got to be realistic about it. But then I’ve got to be careful about how I answer these questions.

“I did use the Daewoo once and I was stopped by the police once in it for speeding.”